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You gave her WHAT?

She watched dd this weekend, and when I picked her up after work on Sunday.... I saw the high-chair.... and there were CHEERIOS on it! DD is NOT sitting up on own yet... and she is just now starting stage 2's! At that ... she only really actually likes the bananas, applesauce, and pears. (Can't get her to eat veggies for the life of me!.... she slams her little chin into her neck, and clamps down those little naked gummies, and you aren't getting s*it in there otherwise.... on the rare, chance opportunity she does open her mouth, and you get a spoonful of veggies in there... she knows how to spit it EVERYWHERE!) Anyway... I told mother.... "mom, don't give her cheerios! We aren't doing that yet!" She said "Well........I just don't know how you even survived then!" ........... I mean, this is all coming from the woman who read me the riot act last week about how my dd is 7 months old... and it is time to start "un-breastfeeding her".................lol. RIGHT.

So, ok, I think that I am going to have to lay the law down... my way or no way. She just wont go to gram's if grama can't play by the rules!

Re: You gave her WHAT?

Oh, I hear you! My MIL lives with us, and I've had to do this often. She just grew up on a different diet - I've tried explaining the difference between whole wheat vs. enriched flour, fresh fruit vs fruit cocktail, etc., and ultimately, I've just had to say, "You know, I don't want her to have X." It's hard.

I should transfer some of our veggie karma to you - my son is a green bean fanatic and prefers them to anything else, except fruit. Take care!

Re: You gave her WHAT?

I say lay down the law cowgirl! My mom and I have never been close but even at our closest, I know for a fact she'll never watch my son! She always trying to get him to drink, eat stuff he isn't ready too. My mil watches him bc I know SHE will do as I ask...sometimes that's what it takes

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First time mommy of Robert Nicolas, now 9 whole months(), and loving it!

Re: You gave her WHAT?

She watched dd this weekend, and when I picked her up after work on Sunday.... I saw the high-chair.... and there were CHEERIOS on it! DD is NOT sitting up on own yet... and she is just now starting stage 2's! At that ... she only really actually likes the bananas, applesauce, and pears. (Can't get her to eat veggies for the life of me!.... she slams her little chin into her neck, and clamps down those little naked gummies, and you aren't getting s*it in there otherwise.... on the rare, chance opportunity she does open her mouth, and you get a spoonful of veggies in there... she knows how to spit it EVERYWHERE!) Anyway... I told mother.... "mom, don't give her cheerios! We aren't doing that yet!" She said "Well........I just don't know how you even survived then!" ........... I mean, this is all coming from the woman who read me the riot act last week about how my dd is 7 months old... and it is time to start "un-breastfeeding her".................lol. RIGHT.

So, ok, I think that I am going to have to lay the law down... my way or no way. She just wont go to gram's if grama can't play by the rules!

OK...first of all, I understand your frustration. I think its happened to all of us.

Maybe you were concerned about allergies? And you hadn't finished giving a new food several days before introducing a new one? I can see how Grandma introducing a new food to the mix would be frustrating.

That being said though, if you didn't specifically tell your mom that cheerios were on the list of "no's", then I wouldn't be too hard on her. Cheerios are a very normal food that many parents give their 7 mos. old babies. If your baby can sit up when you put her in a sitting position, and she can chew and swallow without pushing foods back out of her mouth (she's lost the tongue thrust reflex), and she can pick the foods up off her tray and move them to her mouth, then its perfectly safe to give finger foods. In fact, our ped. always makes a point to mention that finger foods are totally ok to give at the 6 mos. WBV appointment.

If you really want to have strict control over what baby gets and when, then make up a list of allowed foods and post it in your kitchen or give it to your mom when she watches the baby. But forgive her for the cheerios. They are healthy and completely appropriate for most 7 mos. old babies. If you didn't specifically tell her she could not feed them or anything not on your list of ok'd foods to the baby, then its really not her fault.

Re: You gave her WHAT?

I can relate all too well. MIL is very sneaky with food (and basically everything else) with DD1. We had an incident this weekend when she ordered a chocolate chip cookie for DD while we were at a restaurant. She 1) Didn't ask if it was ok and 2) practically whispered the order to the waitress, thinking I wouldn't hear. The only reason I didn't say anything is b/c I knew DD wouldn't eat it anyway. She was much more interrested in the grapes and cucumbers I gave her.

Re: You gave her WHAT?

Yeah, just lay out your rules for feeding your lo as clearly as possible so there is no room for misunderstanding and explain you have these preferences for a reason. You know your lo won't die from a departure from the rules, but it's your child, so it's your rules. Play by the rules or don't play at all.

Re: You gave her WHAT?

I started giving cheerios to my 4 year old when she was 7 months. cut in half. she did have all 8 front teeth though at the time and I sat with her and gave them to her 2 hafs at a time. my son only had 4 teeth at that age so he was about 10 months before all that.

Re: You gave her WHAT?

i would agree that if he is not sitting up on his own yet then he is not ready for finger foods.

my MIL pulled the "why aren't you giving him Cheerios" bit on me a few weeks ago. I simply told her that he had not been introduced to wheat yet and since it is a high allergen we were holding it off a little longer. DS is 8.5 months old. She seemed to accept that response. We actually only just introduced grains a week or so ago, in the form of organic rice cereal.

I often hear the "i dont know how you survived" or similar bit. Or, "we did it and our babies turned out fine!" Personally "fine" is not enough for my son - I want to do the best for him, and if that goes against what my mom or my MIL thinks so be it.

I think sometimes a little white lie in this situation is the way to handle it - if she keeps giving you a hard time, you could say "our pediatrition says that baby is not ready for finger foods yet."

Re: You gave her WHAT?

My daughter is 11 1/2 months and won't eat any solids, thus, she is still exclusively drinking BM. My parents came to visit my LO and brought dunkin donuts -- which we NEVER have in our house (nor do we choose to eat them). I left the room for a second and came back to my dad trying to feed Isabella a piece of donut. I simply said "Is that organic?" the answer, an obvious "no". "Then please don't feed it to her". It took everything i had not to scream the 1000 reasons why she can not eat a donut, but I tried very hard to keep cool and get my point across.

I hear the "we did blah blah blah for you and you survived". and i respond with "if you'd like to continue to feed a child those types of food (aka crap), then have another one of your own".